You open the packaging of your glove and stop for a second: there is only one inside. You look up at the range, and it is the same almost everywhere, a glove on one hand, the other bare. Nobody finds it odd, and nobody explains it.
Why one glove in golf and not two: to improve the hold of the top hand on the club, while keeping the other hand in direct contact with the grip. For a right-handed player, the glove generally goes on the left. Both hands work, only one is gloved.
The short answer: the glove goes on the top hand
Which hand does a golf glove go on? The top one. On a shaft the hands are not side by side: they are one above the other, and the top one sits right at the end of the grip. Right-handed, that is the left hand. Left-handed, the right.
Both hands hold the club through the swing. The glove improves the grip of the top hand and limits repeated rubbing on the skin. When your hands sweat, that steadier contact saves you from squeezing harder to feel confident. It takes no work away from the bottom hand: both stay engaged, from the start of the movement to impact.
If you take one thing from this article, take this one: look at which hand goes at the top of the grip before you choose your glove. That is more reliable than thinking about the hand you write with. The marker holds for a conventional grip.
Why the other hand stays bare
Depending on the grip, some of the bottom hand’s fingers rest on those of the top hand. It still keeps an active role on the club. A second glove can give it grip too; many players simply prefer to keep that contact bare.
And then there is feel. A bump and run at the edge of the green, a pitch over a bunker, a three-quarter shot: each of those asks for judgement of distance. Some prefer to feel the grip directly; others are comfortable in two gloves. It is a playing preference, not an obligation. On the putting green you also see players take their glove off to get that contact back in both hands.
Then the practical argument: that hand does everything else for you. Pushing in a tee, lifting a ball, placing a marker, shaking hands on the last hole. Keeping one hand bare makes those small movements simpler, even if nothing obliges you to take a glove off to do them.
One glove or two: the days people wear a pair
It happens, and they are not eccentrics.
In the rain the needs change. A wet grip can slip in both hands. Some players put on a pair of rain gloves, made for exactly that. A towel kept dry also helps to wipe the grips between shots, without replacing proper gloves once the rain settles in.
In hard cold, two gloves as well: winter gloves, thicker, sold in pairs and made to stay on through the shot. Nothing to do with the mittens you take off to play.
And then there are the players who wear two all the time, for comfort or because the skin on both hands marks. The rules allow the habit: they govern how a glove is made, without requiring you to wear only one. Choose what suits your hands.
The R&A equipment rules ask for a plain glove: fitted to the hand, a sheath or an opening for each finger, a smooth palm. They rule out padding beyond the permitted threshold, straps that attach the club to the hand, and materials that adhere to the grip.
The Dogleg glove
Ours comes in a men’s and a women’s version. One glove, for the top hand on the grip. The other one you keep bare, if that is how you prefer to play.